"Gov. Palin – Who are you wearing???"

Much ado about the Palin wardrobe brouhaha. 

Is this worth the time the MSM is spending on it?  Only insofar as it allows them to pile on once again.

Here’s my opinion.  Sarah Palin is a governor of a remote (geographically speaking) state.  Her wardrobe is sufficient for the type of business she does in Alaska, and she has access to laundry and dry cleaning facilities whenever she needs them.

However, she’s plucked out of Alaska a few short weeks ago; offered the Vice President slot on the McCain ticket and is “put on the bus” right after the announcement.

What’s her schedule?  Endless appearances – several per day.  Informal and formal functions which require different wardrobes.  Nights on the bus or in a hotel room and out again the next morning.  While she may be able to rinse out her pantyhose, I doubt she has time to wash, fluff and fold her dirty laundry.

I’ve been in a job where I did a lot of traveling.  A lot.  It’s not fun and it’s not convenient. 

So Sarah Palin received money to bulk up her wardrobe – good and, so what?

As far as the amount she spent on that jacket or suit, please.  If she had grabbed something off the rack at Penney’s, she’d get criticized for looking wrinkled or frumpy or lacking fashion-sense.   She’s dressing in well-made clothes (which hold up better and fit nicer) and she’s getting pummeled for that. 

“Why do you need to pay for it?” Forest told CBS News from her boutique Susanna Beverly Hills saying that most designers would offer to clothe a candidate for free.

“It’s an honor, you are going to design for someone who could be the president of the United States,” noting that the exposure any designer would get from dressing someone as famous as Clinton or Palin would be worth much more.
The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year that Senator Clinton’s custom made pantsuits from Forest were worth about $6,350 a piece retail. Clinton’s spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

If Palin had clothing donated by designers (as if that would ever happen) she would be accused of forsaking her ‘down home’ image or cozying up to the rich…she can’t win and if the uber-lefties can’t at least acknowledge that, they aren’t being honest.

I wouldn’t mind if Sarah Palin came out in jeans and a tee shirt, but that’s not the expectation for high profile women.  A male politician can wear a flannel shirt and Levi’s at a barbeque and people call him homey and say “he’s just like me”.  A woman does it and she’s called unprofessional.

There doesn’t seem to be the same outrage at Hillary Clinton being provided $6,000.00 pantsuits or actresses who get millions of dollars per picture walking the red carpet at the Oscar’s or Emmy’s not paying a dime for that gown they are wearing.

Please…can we move on to something of substance?

 

Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin,Palin,Vice President of the United States,CBS News,clothes,politicians,designers,fashion

Truth about taxes…room for the middle class at the poor house

From the New York Post today OBAMA TELLS THE TAX TRUTH (below):

Original source story here.  Emphasis in red is mine.

By the way, as regards the checks from Washington sited below – where I live, that’s called welfare.  I am insulted to think that anyone wants to suggest I can’t make it without government welfare.  I am appalled to realize that Obama will tax me to the point that I would qualify for welfare. 

As has been the case for most tax cuts/deductions/incentives from any candidate that has come along in recent years, I don’t qualify for any of ’em.   I don’t have children, so the dependents, child care, college tax cuts don’t go to me.  I don’t fall into that married category so the marriage tax benefits don’t apply to me.  I don’t have enough money to be able to invest and receive capital gains – so that’s out.  I just keep getting taxed more at the local, state and federal level.   I pay to educate other people’s children.  I pay to fund art museums and symphonies I don’t go to.  I pay for parks I don’t visit.  I pay for other people’s mortgages.  I pay for other people’s defaulted loans and credit cards.  I pay to support causes and countries that I am diametrically opposed to and, in some cases, find offensive.

I can’t invest in my own retirement because I am paying for someone else’s.  I pay for someone else’s food, even if it means I have to cut back on my own groceries.

I pay for AIGs spa retreats, even though I can’t afford to go on vacation.

Obama is going to make sure he taxes me into the welfare state.  This is not the America most of us thought we would be living in.

 

OBAMA TELLS THE TAX TRUTH

October 15, 2008

An unscripted moment with an Ohio plumber produced a startling confession from Barack Obama Sunday: The Democrat’s “middle-class tax cut” is in fact a scheme to “spread the wealth around.”

Obama dropped the mask long enough to tell the truth to Toledo plumber Joe Wurzelbacher – who had asked the Democratic nominee why he wanted to jack up his taxes just for “fulfilling the American dream.”

“I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year,” Wurzelbacher had told Obama. “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?”

“It’s not that I want to punish your success,” Obama replied. “I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success, too . . . When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

At last! The truth outs!

Obama’s plan isn’t about sinking hooks into Wall Street CEOs and other fat cats, as he usually says. Fact is, there’s not enough of them to raise the cash necessary to finance his other grand plans.

No, to do that, he’ll have to go after ambitious working-class guys like Wurzelbacher – who’s been a plumber for 15 years and is looking to better himself and his family while just maybe creating a few jobs.

The American Dream?

Wurzelbacher personifies it – but Barack Obama seems determined to tax it to death and be done with it, period.

That’s been the case all along, of course. What’s different is that the Democrat finally said so.

Heretofore, Obama has sought to paint himself as a tax-cutter – claiming he’ll slash taxes for 95 percent of Americans.

As we noted yesterday, that’s a flat-out lie – not least because nearly half of all tax filers pay no income tax at all. So how can he “cut” their taxes if they don’t pay any to begin with?

Answer: tax “credits.”

To wit, in part:

* A $1,000 “make work pay” credit.

* A $4,000 college-tuition credit.

* A $6,000 child-care credit.

* A $1,100 bump in the earned-income tax credit.

These aren’t to be income-tax deductions – which would be worthless to those who pay no income taxes.

These are to be checks from Washington – with the subsidies expected to grow to more than $1 trillion in 10 years.

That’s a massive transfer of wealth.

How does Obama justify it?

“Fairness,” he says.

But that’s an absurdly radical view of what’s “fair.”

Remember, Obama’s tax hikes target folks who already bear the brunt of the burden: The top 20 percent of earners already pay 69 percent of all federal taxes – and 88 percent of income taxes.

(Contrast that with John McCain’s call yesterday for real tax cuts – halving the capital-gains levy, scrapping taxes on unemployment benefits altogether – designed to prime the economic pump.)

Monday, Obama promised a tax policy that would restore “a sense of fairness and balance that will give every American a fair shot at the American dream.”

But just a day before, he told Joe Wurzelbacher the truth: No American dream for you, buddy!

Nor anybody else, it seems.

Technorati Tags: Income tax,Obama,American Dream,taxes,Democrats,New York Post,Poor House,Middle Class

Yellow Journalism – who can you trust?

The lowest form of popular culture – lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives – has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.
Carl Bernstein

From Wikipedia: Yellow journalism is journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of eye-catching headlines that sell more newspapers. It may feature exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists. Campbell (2001) defines Yellow Press newspapers as having daily multi-column front-page headlines covering a variety of topics, such as sports and scandal, using bold layouts (with large illustrations and perhaps color), heavy reliance on unnamed sources, and unabashed self-promotion…The term was extensively used to describe certain major New York City newspapers about 1900 as they battled for circulation. By extension the term is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion, such as systematic political bias.

Interesting story from October 6, 2008 here.  It says in part:

Yet, take Biden’s statement from the debate on the role of the vice president:

“Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

“And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

“The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive, and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.”

One should be careful when throwing around terms such as “most dangerous” and “bizarre.” But Biden is confusing which part of the Constitution covers the Executive Branch (it is Article II, not Article I). More importantly, the notion that the vice president can preside over the Senate only when there is a tie vote is simply wrong. Nor is it true that the only legislative involvement the vice president has is to break tie votes. The vice president is the president of the Senate, where he interprets the rules and can only be overridden by a vote of 60 senators.

Early vice presidents spent a lot of time in the Senate. Thomas Jefferson even spent his time writing “A Manual of Parliamentary Practice: for the Use of the Senate of the United States.” Modern vice presidents may show up only when they think tie votes will occur, but that is their choice.

This isn’t rocket science. The Constitution on this point is very straightforward: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.”

Instead, it was Palin who got it right. Besides correctly stating that the vice president holds positions in both the executive and legislative branches, she also noted that:

“Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that’s not only to preside over the Senate and [I] will take that position very seriously also. I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chooses to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.”

But just as the vice president’s job includes more than simply being ready to assume the presidency if the president dies, the Constitution merely states what the vice president’s minimum responsibilities are.

Sarah Palin has been kicked around as being ditzy and bimbo-ish since she was named as McCain’s Vice Presidential nominee.   Clearly, it’s she, and not Joe Biden, who has a handle on things.

Read the story on other Biden misstatements, including:

— health care taxes

— Obama middle class taxes

— War spending – Iraq versus Afghanistan

— Hezbollah

— Obama meeting with Iran without preconditions

— Iraqi budget surplus

The story goes on to say:

Unfortunately, voters who are trying to get an accurate count on whether the candidates are telling the truth can’t rely on the media. FactCheck.org mentions only one of these points, the size of the Iraqi surplus. The Washington Post mentioned Biden’s misstatement on Hamas and Katie’s restaurant. AOL’s coverage of the errors in the vice presidential debate was by far the worst, though that might not be too surprising given that Tommy Christopher, who wrote their news analysis, also blogs on the Obama Web site. None of these checkers mentioned Biden’s statements about the role of the vice president.

And then details some of the unchallenged errors in Palin reporting.

What the American public wants is the facts about the candidates.  For the last several elections, the media has become more and more invested in a particular candidate and less likely to do objective reporting.  It’s a shame.  Americans are busy people and don’t have time to sift through the mountains of information to find balanced information.

Technorati Tags: Joe Biden,Sarah Palin,Yellow Journalism,health care taxes,middle class taxes,War spending,Iraq,Afghanistan,Hezbollah,Iran,Vice President of the United States,Executive Branch,Legislative Branch,Media Bias

Don’t be so selfish…it’s good for everybody – Obama-isms

How much clearer does Obama need to be on his socialist agenda?  He keeps putting it right out there, media does their best to ignore it/edit it and if ever it’s brought up as a legitimate concern, Obama says 1) he didn’t say it or 2) it was misinterpreted.

Here’s the latest evidence that we are becoming France or some other nanny state.  And more evidence that the MSM is not fully and accurately reporting.

This is the way ABC News reported the encounter:

“Do you believe in the American dream?” a local plumber asked.

Obama said he did.

“I’m being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream,” the man said, in comments interpreted by reporters as a reference to the Democrat’s proposal to increase income taxes on those making $200,000 or more a year.

Obama recited his now-familiar talking points about 95 percent of the American people would get a tax cut under his plan.

The plumber did not seem convinced.

The video of the event located here proves that there was more to the encounter.  The interaction only lasts about 35 seconds and is at the beginning of the clip.  Please take a look.

The text of the conversation follows:

Man:  Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?

Obama:  It’s not that I want to puunish your success,  I just wanna make sure that everybody who is behind ya, that they’ve got a chance at success too.

I just think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

Any questions?   Clear enough?  This man will not stop at “the rich”.  He’s like the aliens in Independence Day.  He’ll destroy one target, and then move on to the next.

Wake up America!  Yo have to fight for your liberty.

Technorati Tags: Obama,taxes,media,disinformation,MSM,socialism

Who’s calling who ‘white trash’?

The tone of presidential campaigns have been getting more and more vile over the years.  It’s unfortunate that the American people cannot get honest debate and actual answers to their questions so that they may make an informed decision.  Instead, we get nasty rhetoric, candidate that ‘pivot’ depending on their audience and special interest groups & media that are determined to force their choice on the electorate, even if they have to lie to do so.

Worse still, the international community feels they have a right to interject their preference on the American people.  Frankly, I don’t care who Al Qaeda wants for President…that will very likely convince me to vote for the other guy.  France loves Obama?  I’m thinkin’ McCain in that case.

This ‘commentary‘ on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website and this one in the Guardian could not illustrate this trend any better.

Among the gems contained in this intellectual and well-reasoned tome:

From FoxNews.com

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is reviewing complaints from both Americans and Canadians about a Web site columnist who recently described Sarah Palin’s supporters as “white trash,” compared the vice presidential candidate to a “porn actress” and called her daughter’s boyfriend a “redneck” and “ratboy.”

The incendiary column by Toronto-based writer Heather Mallick appeared on the CBC News site on Sept. 5, after the close of the Republican National Convention. On the same day, Britain’s Guardian newspaper published another column by Mallick in which she trashed Palin’s home state of Alaska as a “frontier state full of drunks and crazy people.”

In the CBC story, Mallick wrote that John McCain’s running mate “added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn’t already have sewn up, the white trash vote.”

She proceeded to write that the Alaska governor “has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favored by this decade’s woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression.”

She also questioned why the Palins were allowing Levi Johnston — 17-year-old Bristol Palin’s boyfriend and father of her unborn baby — into the family.

“What normal father would want Levi ‘I’m a f—-n’ redneck’ Johnson prodding his daughter?” Mallick asked.

“I know that I have an attachment to children that verges on the irrational, but why don’t the Palins? I’m not the one preaching homespun values but I’d destroy that ratboy before I’d let him get within scenting range of my daughter again, and so would you. … Turn your guns on Levi, ma’am.”

CBC Ombudsman Vince Carlin told FOXNews.com that he has gotten “quite a few complaints about [the column], both from Canada and the U.S,” and said he’s reviewing its contents to see if it meets CBC’s journalistic standards and practices.

But he noted that Mallick is a “columnist not a journalist.”

CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said Mallick’s column does not reflect the views of CBC or the Canadian government, which owns but does not directly control CBC.

“She’s an opinion columnist. I think by definition they can be expected to occasionally use provocative language,” he said. But in this case, Keay said the column “could be perceived as excessive or offensive to some people.”

Mallick also wrote on the CBC Web site that Republican men, whom she called “sexual inadequates,” must think that women would vote for Palin just because she’s a woman.

In her Guardian column, Mallick claimed her own small-town credentials are just as solid as Palin’s, writing “Palin cannot out-hick me.”

But she said Palin should have stayed in her hometown of Wasilla, writing, “Small towns are places that smart people escape from, for privacy, for variety, for intellect, for survival. Palin should have stayed home.”

Mallick also blasted Alaska as Canada’s ugly stepchild.

“We love our own north to the point of covering our eyes and humming as it melts … but Alaska is different from our north,” she wrote. “We share a 1,500-mile border with a frontier state full of drunks and crazy people, of the blight that cheap-built structures bring to a glorious landscape.

“Alaska is our redneck cousin, our Yukon territory forms a blessed buffer zone, and thank God he never visits. Alaska is the end of the line.”

I’m not a separatist, but crap like this could make me change my mind.

The alternate reality of Iraq

I’m sick and tired of the portrayal of our servicemen and women as being some sort of barbaric, blood-thirsty thugs. I’m sick and tired of the portrait being painted of the Iraq mission as being an invasion, occupation, a war for oil, etc., etc.

I’m not simple enough to think I can do much, but I can do a little. I plan on scouring the internet to find stories and photos of positive changes we’re making in the world. I’m fully aware that these won’t be published by the Main Stream Media (not even by Fox News, which I am very disappointed about). I vow to find ’em and post ’em.

If you or someone you know wishes to submit such photos or commentary, please give me a shout at breakingpointwp@yahoo.com

This photo is dated Wednesday, February 14, 2007.

The caption reads:

A US soldier from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment of the Second Infantry Division greets a child in the Shaab neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2007 during a house-to-house search.

Who is showing the American people this images? No one! Why? There are a thousand different reasons.

I’m proud of these men and women. They deserve better than they’ve gotten from us.

Winter Soldier?

This image is making the rounds on the blogosphere today.  And rightly so.

Powerline and Hottalk have the story and quotes from a soldier in Iraq.

Here’s the accompanying photo.

Perhaps the “blame American first”, “we can’t win”, “pull out the troops” crowd will understand the plain message of this photo, even though there is no “nuance” involved.

God Bless the troops and their families.

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Irrational Hysteria – brought to you by the fourth estate

I doubt this will get much coverage, which is really sad.  I wonder if the bigger question is why the media and their minions persist in doing this.  The statement below that the coverage of global warming has created a bias that has become an “irrational
hysteria” is right. 

If it’s been proven or even suggested that climate change are or could be cyclical, why is there no big media coverage of that theory?  What is the end game the media hopes to accomplish by reporting one point of view that has been challenged by historical data?

Media Shows Irrational Hysteria on Global Warming

“The Public Has Been Vastly Misinformed,” NCPA’s Deming
Tells Senate Committee

12/6/2006 5:57:00 PM

---

To: National Desk

Contact: Sean Tuffnell of the National Center for Policy Analysis,
972-308-6481 or sean.tuffnell@ncpa.org

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ — David Deming, an associate professor at
the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for
Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified this morning at a special hearing of the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing examined climate
change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his prepared remarks.

“In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In that
study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one
degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the
article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He
offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to
human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.

“I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was
published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area
of climate change. He said, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”
“The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm weather that began
around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the “Little Ice Age”
took hold in the 14th century. … The existence of the MWP had been recognized
in the scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major embarrassment
to those maintaining that the 20th century warming was truly anomalous. It had
to be “gotten rid of.”

“In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of past
temperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became known
as the “hockey stick,” because of the shape of the temperature graph. “Normally
in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work,
you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and
his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted
the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since
reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its
extent.

“There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of
global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational
hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming,
no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has
become vastly misinformed.”

—

The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research
institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D. C. that advocates private
solutions to public policy problems. NCPA depends on the contributions of
individuals, corporations and foundations that share our mission. The NCPA
accepts no government grants.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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Bush is back!

I’ve been a little disappointed in President Bush lately, I don’t mind telling you.  I think he’s most effective when he is laying things on the line with the press, the politicians and the American people.  He’s been unwilling to do that for a long while now.  As a result, I think that things have spiraled downward when they did not have to do so.  But today, I do believe that President Bush is back.  His speach at the American Legion National Convention was absolutely right.  See the entire speech here.

A few snippets picked from throughout the speech follow:

When you see innocent civilians ripped apart by suicide bombs, or families buried inside their homes, the world can seem engulfed in purposeless violence. The truth is there is violence, but those who cause it have a clear purpose. When terrorists murder at the World Trade Center, or car bombers strike in Baghdad, or hijackers plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic, or terrorist militias shoot rockets at Israeli towns, they are all pursuing the same objective — to turn back the advance of freedom, and impose a dark vision of tyranny and terror across the world.

Despite their differences, these groups from — form the outlines of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology. And the unifying feature of this movement, the link that spans sectarian divisions and local grievances, is the rigid conviction that free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam.

The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.) On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation — the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism — the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They’re successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be: This war will be difficult; this war will be long; and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists and totalitarians, and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty.

In the space of a single morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. We realized that years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither. Instead, the lack of freedom in the Middle East made the region an incubator for terrorist movements.

Here at home we have a choice to make about Iraq. Some politicians look at our efforts in Iraq and see a diversion from the war on terror. That would come as news to Osama bin Laden, who proclaimed that the “third world war is raging” in Iraq. It would come as news to the number two man of al Qaeda, Zawahiri, who has called the struggle in Iraq, quote, “the place for the greatest battle.” It would come as news to the terrorists from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and other countries, who have to come to Iraq to fight the rise of democracy.

We can decide to stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq and other parts of the world, but they will not decide to stop fighting us. General John Abizaid, our top commander in the Middle East region, recently put it this way: “If we leave, they will follow us.” And he is right. The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victory is achieved.

Victory in Iraq will be difficult and it will require more sacrifice. The fighting there can be as fierce as it was at Omaha Beach or Guadalcanal. And victory is as important as it was in those earlier battles.

For all that is new about this war, one thing has not changed: Victory still depends on the courage and the patience and the resolve of the American people. Above all, it depends on patriots who are willing to fight for freedom.

God Bless him, I love when the politician in him goes away and the Texan in him comes out.

Long lines at airports, no liquids & lotions on flights

How many news breaks did you see today where a lot of time was spent on this kind of tripe?

MSM – get in the game!  There is a bigger story here.  What could have happened.  The fact that some islamo-facists were planning this.  The fact they are planning more of these types of attacks.

Can we focus on the bigger, more important issue, for once, please?

Thank you….idiots.

Sleight of hand

NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls

That's the headline in the USA Today. The opening paragraph says:The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.But's it's deceiving (what a surprise).

The second paragraph begins:

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime.

Then finishes with:

This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews. (all emphasis above is mine)